It's actually derogatory to us proper radio amateurs. It's an acronym for Half-Arsed MechanicXac wrote: radio ham (is that just a play on amatuer?)
So, the Radio Amateurs Exam is unfailable now is it? Disgraceful. Not like in my day when for a class A licence you had to sit a full City and Guilds Exam (in essay form) where you needed to know a lot of radio theory and take a morse test at a Post Office coastal radio station and pass the test faultlessly at 12WPM both sending and receiving... A Class B licence still needed the full exam but with no morse requirement and limited you to VHF (2M) and above only. A Class A licence gave access to all bands.
During the sunspot peak there would be no need for burners to contact the yanks on 27MHz CB. Choose the right time of day and very little power would be needed, just a well-designed and rigged aerial, not one of those silly base-loaded whips; they're actually rather inefficient... We amateurs have the 10M band at 28MHz and at the right times the world was yours with under a watt into a decent sloping Vee...
Once you've learned morse you never forget it, just like the Q codes.
Di di di dah di da....
HF radio comms is my first trade but sadly it is now totally obsolete and hence why these days I work in IT. I will always miss it